Page 38 of Interlude

“Screeching?” Aubrey repeated. “Hang on, Sebastian, it’s not a person, it’s—”

I hung up and pocketed the phone as I reached our apartment. As I let myself in, Dillon warily backed up all the way to the middle of the front room, looking like he was ready to bolt to the loft at the first sign of insanity. I raised the sledgehammer in both hands, angled myself to one side, and then whaled on the wall to the right of the door. I immediately put a hole in the drywall, and the screeching started anew. Drawing back, I tried to put a second hole beside the first, but wildly missed. I was legally blind—what the hell did I expect? I’d made a third hole by the time Super had reached the open doorway, shouting in both English and Russian for me to stop.

“You crazy man!” he said, grabbing the handle of the sledgehammer and ripping it from my grasp. “How do I explain this to landlord?Huh? He will—”

Hissing emitted from the thrashed wall, cutting Super’s tirade short, and we both looked toward the sound.

My phone was vibrating. I blindly retrieved it, tapped Accept, and said, “Yes?”

“It’s an opossum, you bitch,” Aubrey shouted over the line. Then he hung up.

Super approached the damage, broke off some drywall hanging like a jagged tooth, and poked his head in. He removed his own phone, turned on the flashlight, and studied the space between the inner and outer wall. “Opossum,” he stated. “She’s stuck down here and—” He leaned in farther, angled toward the loft. “Babies. She can’t reach babies.”

“It’s really an opossum?”

“Come see.”

I warily approached and glanced through the hole as Super stepped aside for me. “Son of a bitch….”

“You are lucky. I would have to make hole to get her out anyway.”

I glanced at his glowering expression. “Please don’t tell Boyfriend.”